


A Light in the Dark

by Phoxphyre



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Claustrophobia, Hair Washing, M/M, SnowBaz, Watford Eighth Year, catacombs, truth spell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-24 23:47:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22226503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoxphyre/pseuds/Phoxphyre
Summary: Baz is imprisoned in the catacombs under Watford. Simon comes to rescue him--but sometimes imprisonment runs deeper than the chains.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 23
Kudos: 398
Collections: Simon saves Baz





	A Light in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Truth Will Set You Free](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21459538) by [SHARKMARTINI](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SHARKMARTINI/pseuds/SHARKMARTINI). 



> When I read the wonderful [The Truth Will Set You Free](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21459538) I couldn't help wondering what Baz was thinking. So, this is the same story from his POV. I hope I've done it justice. 
> 
> If you haven't read [The Truth Will Set You Free](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21459538) yet, seriously, go do that first. (I'll wait.) This is written to stand alone, but I think it works better if you read Simon's POV first. 
> 
> The structure and plot and all dialogue (minus one small addition from me) is Sharkmartini's. 
> 
> NOTE: I originally discovered [The Truth Will Set You Free](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21459538) through the amazing accompanying [illustration](https://vkelleyart.tumblr.com/post/189640014437/fanon-pic-again-when-the-lovely-and-talented) by [vkelleyart](https://vkelleyart.tumblr.com/). It quite literally took my breath away and I had it open near-constantly while writing this.

It’s so dark down here.

Dark and cold. I’ve never been so cold.

I’m cold all the time. Even on normal days I’m cold as death (because I _am_ dead).

But this is different. It feels like I’m freezing slowly from the inside, like there’s a glacier forming from my blood. (The blood I take. The blood that doesn’t even really belong to me.)

Usually I try not to think about how I’m already dead. But down here, in the dark, there’s nothing to do but think.

The dividing line between sleep and wakefulness is thinner here. Sometimes I slip over the line softly, without even realizing.

In my dreams, I’m back in my room at the top of the turret. Home.

I’m lying in my bed, goose quills poking into my side. Watching Snow sleep. I can see the shadows his lashes make on his cheeks, the press of his curls against the pillow. I can count his moles in the moonlight through the window.

Sometimes he opens his eyes. Those blue eyes. Unremarkable.

We look at each other across the gulf between our beds—really _look_ at each other, the way we try so hard _not_ to look at each other in our real lives—and I see something in his eyes I’ve never seen before.

“Baz,” he says, and reaches out across the gulf and takes my hand. And I feel his heat—the jet engine furnace of him that’s always burning, just below his skin. And his touch makes me briefly feel warm. (So warm.)

And then I wake up again.

In the dark. And the cold.

The chains on my wrists run to the thick wooden headboard of the bed. I’ve explored it with my hands, the little I can reach. The bed was probably fine once, long ago, but now the lacquer is cracked and peeling.

At first I strained against the chains, throwing all my vampire strength against them. But they must have built it with my kind in mind, because all my efforts did nothing but tire me. I’m weaker now, after all this time. (How long _has_ it been? I used to try to keep track, but I’ve long since given up.)

There’s no magic here. I don’t have my wand, of course. But usually I can feel magic even without it, the way you can feel the warmth of a fire from across the room. Here there’s nothing. It’s as if one of the Humdrum’s dead spots is underneath my school.

I know I’m in the catacombs under Watford, even though I was half insensible when they dragged me here. I’ve spent enough time here; I recognize the smell of it, the dusty stillness of the air.

I used to come down here to talk to my mother. Snow found me there once. I sneered at him and mocked him and he waved his sword at me, the way he always does. He accused me of being a vampire, and I lied to him. The way I always do.

My mother is close here. (Her _bones_ are close.) I wonder if she can see me, from across the Veil. She must be so ashamed—not only am I a vampire, but I let myself be caught. I let myself stay alive (mostly alive) even if I’m weak and one leg doesn’t work quite right.

There’s no light here, and even my vampire eyes need _some_ light to see. But when my captor comes with his torch I can see a bit more of my prison.

It’s no more than five paces wide: barely big enough to hold the bed, a rickety stool, and a cold woodstove on the far side of the room. He never lights a fire, but even in the dark I can smell it: the ashes, like the ghost of fires that have been. So many times I’ve reached towards it, trying to strike the smallest of sparks. I should be able to do it: the scion of two long lines of fire magicians, first in my class.

I dream of it sometimes: a tiny spark that grows until it consumes the whole room, lighting me like a sheet of paper burning from the center outwards. Burning it all down.

My mother would be proud of me, I think.

But there’s no magic, so no matter how hard I reach, nothing happens.

My aunt Fiona would say it’s the Mage who took me—but Fiona thinks _everything_ is the Mage. (Is Fiona looking for me? Is my father?)

I can hear him coming from a long way away. It isn’t true, what they say, that your other senses get sharper when you can’t see. But my hearing was already sharper than a person’s. So I can hear the sound of fabric scraping against rock. I can even hear his breathing, louder than usual. (Wherever I am, it must take some effort to get here.) I can even see the light of his torch coming through the tiny keyhole; that’s how dark it is.

You’d think the cold would be the worst. The cold and the dark.

But the worst part?

I can smell his blood.

When he opens the door the smell washes over me: warm and metallic and _good_ , better than roast beef and yorkshire pudding and the mulled wine we have on holidays. It’s so quiet that I can hear the sound of his heart beating. Lately every time he opens the door my fangs pop, as if he’s a delivery boy bringing me dinner. Except the dinner is _him_.

It’s all I can do to stop myself from flinging myself against my chains, snarling like an animal, straining for his neck with my fangs. He’s my enemy, after all. Why shouldn’t I bite him? In the beginning there were reasons—good reasons. I would recite them to myself in the dark: I may be dead, but I’m still a Pitch. My parents’ son. I’m civilized. But the reasons are starting to seem less and less important.

I’m always hungry. He brings me blood, but never food. I don’t know if he doesn’t know that I need it, or if he’s trying to be cruel. The blood keeps me alive, but I never feel full. And the hunger merges with the cold into a new, deeper kind of pain.

He never speaks. You wouldn’t think you could miss human speech so much. But our magic is based in _words_. I grew up learning to tune my voice like my violin, shaping each word to come out crisp and clear and perfectly suited to its purpose.

Sometimes, when I feel myself losing language, I conjugate Greek verbs and run through my Latin declensions: _hic haec hoc huius huius huius_. Just to remind myself what words sound like.

Lately that isn’t enough. Lately I find myself talking to my mother. Sometimes I argue with Snow. Even fighting is better than this _silence_.

My captor brings me neither human food nor human speech. He treats me like an animal. Hour by hour, I become more and more sure he’s right.

I haven’t been human since I was five, when the monsters got me. But I’m less human now.

I hate this bed.

I sleep on it, because I have no choice. But I spend as little time as possible on it otherwise. Sometimes, like now, I stretch the chains as far as they’ll go and wedge myself into the tiny space between the bed and the far wall. The wall is even colder than the air, rough stone blocks carved out of the rock of the Catacombs. The chains are too short, so I hang sideways half off and half on the bed. The manacles chafe my wrists. I rubbed them raw, trying to get free when I first came here. They’ve never healed quite right, so now they’re raw and sore and covered in scabs.

I could hang off the other side instead. There’s more space there. But that side is closest to the door, and I never know when he’s coming.

He came earlier today, I think. I’m not even sure how long it was; the visits are all the same. He put a cup of blood on the stool and slid the stool across the floor to me. The noise it made on the floor was shockingly loud.

Sometimes I dream that he gets close enough for me to grab; that I twist my legs around him and pull him close, break his neck and sink my fangs into the spot just above his collarbone.

But he’s cautious; he never comes near me. The stool is just high enough that I can bend my neck down and drink the blood from the bendy straw without using my hands. I used to try to talk to him, to taunt him into revealing something. But it never worked, and I’m always so hungry. Today I gulped down the blood so fast that it made me lightheaded. My captor watched me the whole time from under his hood, only his eyes visible behind the mask. It’s so dark that even my undead vision can’t tell what color his eyes are.

When I was done he slid the stool back across the floor so that it was out of my reach. He took the empty cup and set down another one. Sometimes he brings two, maybe so he doesn’t have to carry it with him next time. Or maybe just to torture me. I know it’s there even when it’s dark; I can smell it. Sometimes I can’t think of anything else.

He took the torch out of the holder on the wall, turned, and left. I could hear the key turn in the door and the sound of him scraping away. I wished he would come back, just so I could smell his blood. Just so there would be another person here with me. And then the shame was almost worse than the dark.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” I say into the dark. My voice is raspy; how long has it been since I used it? “I should have fought harder.” I feel wetness on my cheeks; I’m crying. I can’t even wipe the tears away.

Since I’m already being pathetic, I let myself slip even further into fantasy.

In my mind, Snow— _Simon_ —is here beside me. He pulls me into his arms and brushes my tears away with gentle hands.

“Shhh,” he says. “Shhh, Baz, I’m here.”

I’ve known how I felt about him since fifth year. Usually I do my best to push it down, scrunch it into a tiny ball like old laundry. But here in the Catacombs it hovers close to me as the dark.

I let myself think of him. And the thought hurts. And the pain reminds me I’m not all the way dead yet.

He might be stuffing himself in the cafeteria right now, just above my head; school must have started by now. The thought almost makes me smile. If I came in he’d look up, narrowing his pouchy eyes. He always knows where I am, like you do with an enemy.

It comforts me, somehow, to know that Simon Snow is up there. Alive. Almost as close as my mother’s bones.

I don’t know how long it’s been when I hear the sounds: a scraping, a shuffling, something that sounds like the ring of metal on rock.

It’s too soon for my captor to come back, isn’t it? But I can’t bring myself to care. I’ll stay where I am; let him come and get me. Maybe he’ll get close enough to bite.

But something sounds different. I lift my head to see over the top of the bed, using the chains to pull myself just a bit more upright. Maybe I still have a shred of curiosity left in me. Or maybe I just want a glimpse of light.

The door creaks open—huge and heavy, plated in solid silver. The light of a torch hits my eyes, bright enough to blind me for a moment. I hiss and duck my head, away from the light.

When I look up again, Simon Snow is there.

I see him outlined against the doorway, squinting his eyes against the darkness. He’s holding the Sword of Mages up like a torch, with something burning on the end. The light arcs out around him like spread wings, and for a second his head is limned in light like a halo.

Then I notice that his chest is bare.

_This is a new one_ , I think. I’ve fantasized before about Simon rescuing me; of course I have. I’ve had a lot of time to think. In my fantasies he strikes off my chains with a single blow; I swoon into his arms and he kisses me, confessing how my absence made him realize his intense and homoerotic feelings for me. (I don’t think absence can actually turn someone gay, but that’s why they’re fantasies). Then he pulls the collar of his shirt aside and says, “You must be hungry. Drink.” And I sink my fangs into his neck, just below the ear, right where there’s a mole…

I shake my head to clear it. Snow is still standing there, shirtless, holding up his sword. (Is that a…burning shirt on the end?) I shake my head again, which doesn’t change the vision, but does make me dizzy. I sag down against the chains.

“Baz!” he says, and the sound of his voice—a human voice, Simon’s voice—is such a relief that I almost start weeping again. There’s a clanging sound, a hissed curse, and he reappears in the gap at the end of the bed, his hands empty. He must have tossed his torch aside. (Moron.)

“Baz,” he says, softer this time. He almost never says my name; the sound of it is almost too much for me.

“Simon?” I say, rasping. He scoots forward (his hips barely fit in the space between the bed and the wall) and gathers me into his lap. And I can’t tell if I’m awake or dreaming; he’s done this so many times in my mind. His smell wraps itself around me, smoky and sharp and rough in the back of my throat. It’s this detail that makes me think that maybe this is real, because in all my fantasies I have never been able to bring his scent so vividly to mind.

My fangs have popped, because I can smell his blood as well. (Of course I can. Simon always smells of blood to me, blood and fire and green wood burning.) I close my lips over all the words I want to say, trying to hide the fangs.

“Fuck, Baz,” he says. He sounds shaky, hardly heroic at all. I hope he’s reacting to the dirt and not my fangs. I don’t want him to see me like this.

He pulls me towards him, probably trying to get a better look at me. The chains stretch taut, already at their limit, and the manacles scrape at the raw patches on my wrists. I hiss, wincing away from his hands and eyes.

“What the actual fuck?” That sounds like the real Snow. “Can you get up?”

“No,” I say, turning my head away, forcing the words to come out clearly around the fangs. “My leg—something happened to it and I can’t—”

He scoops me up in his arms, and this is so much like my dreams that I close my eyes so I can enjoy it. My cheek falls against his bare chest; the skin is as smooth as I’ve always imagined, and I’m suddenly warmer. I can feel the pulse of his blood under his skin, pushed by the steady beat of his heart.

I can feel something else as well: the ache in the back of my throat from his damned cross. (It’s good he’s wearing it; I’m so thirsty I could drain one of the Queen’s little dogs.) The static of it helps; I feel the fangs slide back into wherever they go.

I try to focus on the warmth of his skin, the feeling of his arms around me. It’s so much better than I imagined. If this is a dream, I want it to go on forever.

Simon deposits me on the bed and moves away. (I want him to come back; I want to huddle closer to his warmth, like a campfire.)

He runs a hand down my leg. (This, too, has featured in my fantasies, but I think this time he’s checking for injuries, not feeling me up.) I hiss when he gets to my ankle. I think they (he?) did something to me when they took me. I don’t think it’s broken, but it hasn’t healed right, either. Maybe something about this magic-less room also suppresses vampire healing.

He looks around the room. “Right,” he says, and I smile a bit, hearing it. That is the sound of the Chosen One, about to save the day.

He stands. “Simon,” I say, against my will.

He reaches out and squeezes my hand. A brotherly squeeze, I think. The squeeze of a general rallying a wounded soldier.

“I’m not leaving you,” he says. Of course he’s not. Leave no man behind and all that. He’s spent so much of his life rescuing people that I’m not sure he knows how to do anything else, even when it’s me.

He kneels down in front of the grate. “ **Light my fire!** ” he says, and I try not to wince hearing him cast a spell, especially in an enclosed space. (Also, that spell _can_ kindle a fire, but with the proper intonation it can have more…intimate effects as well.)

Luckily for both of us, nothing happens.

The shirt is still burning, which is a) practically a miracle and b) a statement about the quality of workmanship in the Watford uniform. Snow starts breaking the legs off the stool and throwing them into the grate. He blows on the fire, trying to get the wood to catch. I wish he would leave the fires to me, but I’m no help over here bound like a maiden about to be tied to the railroad tracks. I close my eyes so I don’t have to watch him make a mess of it.

Sure enough, he burns himself trying to pull the hot sword out of the fire (I could have told him that was going to happen.) But he does manage to get the fire going at last. He closes the door to keep the heat in, turning the key to lock it.

My eyes are still closed, but I can feel him moving around the room. I know where he is like a compass always points north.

The bed compresses when he sits beside me. I feel the buzz of the cross on the roof of my mouth; I can’t help but recoil a bit.

There’s a sharp snapping sound. I open my eyes in time to see him toss the cross across the room. (Moron, taking off his anti-undead cross when he’s just locked himself in a cell with a starving vampire.) (The jittery not-right feeling in my head does go away, though.)

“Come here,” he says, and if I had enough blood in me my whole body would be flushing. How many times have I wished for him to say those words? He’s only trying to help, though. (Because that’s what Snow _does_.)

He slides closer to me instead, and I lean into him. I can’t help it. I’m so cold, and he’s so warm. He pulls me against him, and I have to tell myself (again) that it doesn’t mean anything. He isn’t gay, and he’s still got his perfect destiny with Wellbelove. (If he lives long enough.)

But he’s running his hands over my back, and I don’t want him to stop. I’m lying to myself—I know I am—but I don’t have the _strength_ , not after all these days (weeks? months?) locked up in here. I turn my face into his chest (still bare; still soft) and a sound escapes me against my will.

I feel his fingers wind through my hair. (I try not to think about how filthy it must be.)

“Who did this?” he says softly. Fiercely. Looking for the dragon to slay.

I open my mouth to tell him I don’t know, that I’ve never seen their face. But what comes out instead is: “Who do you think?”

“Surely you’re not saying—”

It’s like Fiona has taken over my mouth. "Of course it was the Mage. Who else has it out for my family? Who else has been trying to ruin us since he came to power?"

I hear him suck in a breath, ready to defend his beloved mentor.

Then, miraculously, he lets it back out again, like he doesn’t really want to fight either. “What happened?” he says.

"I don't know,” I say. His fingers are tracing slow circles on the back of my neck, and it’s so distracting I hardly know what I’m saying. “I was leaving the club, and someone put a bag over my head. I don’t know what happened next, and when I woke up, I was here."

“So you didn't see him—”

He’s right, but it suddenly seems important to fight him on this. “I don't need to have seen him to know it was him.”

His hand stills, then starts again. “Okay,” he says, and I let out the breath I’ve been holding.

“Are you thirsty?” he asks.

Aleister Crowley, _yes_. I can hear his blood moving beneath the delicate scrim of his skin, and he smells like Christmas dinner, and the only thing keeping me from turning to bite him—just there, right above his heart—is sheer will and the fact that if I did he would probably take his hand out of my hair. My fangs have popped again at the thought.

But then I hear the sudden silence, and I open my eyes to see him looking at the cup of blood. It’s perfectly clear what’s in it. We look at it together for a moment. Then he reaches out his hand (pale gold skin in the dimming firelight), takes the cup, and brings the straw to my lips.

If I weren’t dead already, I might die of shame, drinking blood from a bendy straw in front of my roommate and nemesis, whom I’ve loved hopelessly since fifth year (and who has now, against all logic, apparently come to rescue me).

But I’m starving, and if I drink I might stop thinking about how much I want to bite him. So I close my eyes—so I won’t have to see him watching me—and drink deeply until all of the blood is gone and the straw makes that empty sucking sound against the bottom of the cup.

“Come on,” he says, pulling me towards the edge of the bed. My hands are still chained to the headboard, so I can’t move very far. But everything seems easier, somehow, now that he’s seen me drink.

He fills the empty cup with water and brings it and the basin over to me. I have no idea what he’s doing. He takes one of the pillowcases off, dips it in the water, and hands it to me. Then he slips off the bed and sits on the floor, watching me. Giving me space.

I take the wet pillowcase and run it over my face. Based on the amount of dirt that comes off on the cloth, I shudder to think what I must look like. Hot showers have featured almost as prominently in my daydreams as Snow himself.

My hands shake a bit as I clean up. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m exhausted (I _am_ exhausted) or because he’s watching. We so rarely look at each other.

“Lean your head over the side,” he says, and I’m too tired to resist. I’m not full, exactly—I haven’t been properly full since I was dragged down here—but I can feel the blood in my belly, working its way into my system. The urge to bite him has subsided.

Snow tips the water over my head. It’s warm; it feels so good I make an involuntary noise. Then he sinks both hands into my hair.

In all my years of erotic fantasies about Simon Snow, I have somehow never thought about hair washing. But Crowley, I should have. The feeling of his hands buried in my hair might be the most sensual thing I’ve ever experienced.

I haven’t felt human hands in so long. Not since I’ve been down here, obviously. But I rarely let anyone touch me, even when I’m not imprisoned. (My father clapped me on the shoulder when he dropped me off at school, I think. “Good luck, Basilton. We’ll be in touch,” he said.)

I squeeze my eyes tightly shut as Snow’s gentle hands knead my scalp. There’s enough water running over my head that if a few tears fall, he won’t notice.

I’m not sure exactly how washing my hair fits into his rescue plan, come to think of it. (Did he stop to wash Wellbelove’s hair before he heaved her out of that well? No—her hair was probably perfect the whole time.) Maybe Snow doesn’t actually _have_ a plan. He rarely does.

But I don’t want to think too hard about it. I’m tired of thinking. I just want to sit here and feel Snow’s hands in my hair and pretend that he actually cares about me.

At last he runs the pillowcase over my hair like a towel and prods me upright.

It breaks the spell, and I can no longer stop myself from thinking. “Why are you helping me?” I say. “You hate me.”

“Uh,” he says, eloquently. He runs his hand up the back of his neck, scratching at the place where his hair is shorter. “You're the one who's always being a dick. Besides, I'd help anyone in your situation.”

“Ever the hero,” I sneer at him.

He would do it for anyone. I always knew that, even when I still thought I hated him.

I’m not surprised when he retrieves his sword and starts chopping at the wood of the headboard. Mostly I’m surprised it’s taken him this long to find something to swing at. I do enjoy watching the muscles in his back bunch and release, though. Usually I’m distracted by the threat of imminent death when he’s using the sword.

He’s thin—too thin. There are blue shadows in the hollows of his hips, and the blades of his shoulders stick out. But there are whipcord-lean muscles running up his forearms—the arms of someone who’s been fighting since he was 11.

Finally the wood gives way. He pulls it apart with his hands until the chain comes out. I lower my hands below my ears for the first time in weeks, feeling all the blood rush back to my extremities.

“ _Fuck_ , Snow,” I groan. I think he almost smiles.

Soon I’m seated by the fire, wearing Snow’s ridiculous stockings, which he pressed on me. (They have doughnuts on them, for fuck’s sake.) I’m well and truly warm for the first time in weeks. Snow sits beside me in what might almost be a companionable silence.

I tilt my head in his direction, looking at him out of the corner of one eye.

“Snow,” I say. “Where the fuck is your shirt?”

He tips his head back and laughs, truly laughs. It might be the first time in seven years I’ve heard him laugh like that, open and free. The way he might laugh with a friend.

Some time later the fire is dying. His hand has found its way into mine as we sit there, and I hold it loosely, as if gripping too hard might bring him back to reality. The fire at my face is warm, and Simon’s hand burns in mine like a coal. He’s giving me comfort, I think.

I don’t know how long it’s been since my captor was last here, and I don’t really know how often he comes. But I do know I don’t want him to come back and find us still here, Snow with no shirt and me with no wand and both of us with no magic.

“Okay,” I say, pushing back a little. “Let’s go.” I make to drop his hand. (If he’s not going to talk about it, I’m not.)

He holds on, as if he thinks I need more comfort. I check my expression, make sure it’s composed.

“The tunnel is cold, colder than the catacombs usually are,” he says, looking into my face. “And it’s small, I had to crawl through some of it.”

I swallow.

"I don’t—I don't think we should use the sword as a torch this time. Like I did on the way down,” he says. “It gets pretty cramped in there and I don't want to risk—“

He doesn’t want to risk setting me off like flash paper, but he doesn’t want to say so. I close my eyes and huff out a breath. “Fine.”

“I'll be right there the whole time,” he says. “I’ll go first with the sword, just in case…” He’s staring intently into my eyes, and I can’t do anything but stare back. Crowley, is this how he looks at everyone he rescues? No wonder they follow him. (I would follow him anywhere.)

“I’ll be right there,” he says again, squeezing my hand.

I’m still looking into his eyes. His face is so close. There’s firelight shining in his eyes and turning his hair to copper, and his lips are slightly parted. His face is vivid with life, every mole limned with golden light. I could kiss him, I think. If I tipped my head forward a bit, I could hardly help it.

“Snow…” I hardly know what I’m saying. He looks at me, no expression at all in his face. I wish I knew what he was thinking.

Then I shake my head. Reminding myself.

It doesn’t do to forget my role in Simon Snow’s story. He’s the hero, just waiting to get on with the saving. Right now I’m filling in for the damsel in distress, but once this rescue is over I’ll be the cackling villain once more. Even if I don’t want to be.

I lean back, push away, start stripping off his stupid stockings. Even though it makes me feel even colder. Right now I don’t want any part of him close to me.

“You’ll need them more than I do,” he says. (Of course he does.)

So when I make my glorious bid for freedom, I do it wearing Simon Snow’s doughnut stockings.

It’s colder outside the room, and the darkness rushes to meet me like an old friend. Snow still has my hand; I try not to show how grateful I am for it. (Pathetic.)

“Baz,” he whispers. “I’m going to let go now, I have to crawl to get through. I'll be right ahead of you. I won't be able to turn around or to see you, so you'll have to tell me what you need, okay?”

It’s hard not to snort at that. When has what I need even come into it? And since when do Snow and I talk?

But then what he said sinks in. We have to crawl. I’ll be alone in the dark again, the rock pressing in on me from all sides. What if I get stuck? What if he leaves me? (He is my enemy, after all.) I picture him back in our turret room, Bunce sitting on my bed, laughing at how easily he defeated me in the end.

What if this is all a dream, and I wake up again and find myself back in that room, chained alone in the dark and the cold?

He’s waiting for me to say something. The dark enfolds me in icy arms. It presses on my chest, heavier than the rock. The silence has crawled down my throat. I’m not sure I can speak.

But I can hear the soft sound of his breathing, and if I concentrate, the barely-there rush of his pulse. His hand is still in mine, the only warm thing in this cursed place.

I’m not alone. Snow won’t leave me.

He will do the right thing.

“Okay,” I say, barely audible.

I have the Sword of Mages in one hand. (Back in the room he handed it to me, as easily as if he wasn’t giving his storied weapon to his sworn enemy). I pass it to him, whacking his leg with the flat by accident. (They don’t teach swordplay in school—unless you’re the Chosen One and the Mage needs you to be his personal weapon.)

Snow gives my hand a last squeeze (giving comfort to the enemy) and vanishes into the tunnel.

There in the dark, I close my fingers around my empty palm, holding onto the last fading warmth of him.

The tunnel is so small that I have to get down on my elbows and wiggle through it.

I’ve never minded enclosed spaces. I’ve been hunting down here for years, after all. But that was before I spent weeks alone in the dark.

I can hear Snow crawling ahead of me—bulling his way through it, like he does with everything. The sound is amplified in the small space, bouncing off the rock walls until I can’t tell where it’s coming from.

The tunnel slants uphill. I’m panting as I drag myself through the rock. I used to be able to play football for hours, but I’m so weak that a bit of an army crawl has practically overcome me.

I’ve always been proud of my mind. When my body started to betray me (cravings for blood; cravings for Snow) my mind was what was left. My mind controlled the blood lust, kept me from blurting out my feelings, drove me to the top of the class and kept me there. It’s the only human part of me left, I think.

But sometimes—like here, in the dark—my mind is my enemy.

I can still hear the scraping as Snow drags himself through the tunnel, but the sound is getting farther and farther away. Does this tunnel have any branches? What if he gets so far ahead of me that I can’t tell which way to go? What if he’s left me, and the sounds ahead are my captor coming towards me?

All I can smell around me is the rock of the tunnel, earthy and metallic and somehow sharp. I should be able to smell Snow, I think. If he were still here. The rock crowds so close that the spurs grab at my filthy tennis whites.

And the thought that keeps coming back to me as I pull myself through the tunnel is: Fine, so I’m rescued. So what? I’ll get back to the surface and, what? Go back to our room in Mummer’s House and clean up, and then everything will go back to the way it was?

It’s mildly surprising that Snow rescued me, but hardly out of character. I can’t imagine that anything will be different afterwards.

The Mage will stalk about the school in his ridiculous costume, except that now I’ll have to wonder if he was the one hiding behind the hood, bringing me blood in takeaway cups. (And whether he’ll do it again.)

I’ll do what the Old Families ask of me, because what other option is there? The Humdrum will keep on drumming, and all the wars will keep marching on.

And Simon and I? We’ll carry on just as we always have, avoiding each other when we can and staying firmly on our own sides of the room when we can’t. I’ll sneak out and murder rats and keep hiding everything important.

And sometimes, when I’m too weak too resist, I’ll watch him sleep. (Because I’ll never have anything more.)

I’ve stopped crawling, I realize dimly. I’m hunched over in the tunnel, my shoulders pressed against the rock.

I can’t carry on.

Not like this.

“Baz?” Snow’s voice drifts down the tunnel. Not so far away after all.

I’ve lain down on the stone floor, my cheek pillowed on one arm. My cheek, my arm, and the rock are the same temperature. I think there’s a spider in my hair. But it doesn’t matter.

I hear rustling from farther up the tunnel, as if Snow is trying to turn. Moron. There’s no room for that. _Just leave me already, Simon Snow._

I’m afraid. There’s no use pretending I’m not. But that’s not the important thing.

“Baz!” he calls, more insistent. It tugs on my traitor heart, hearing him say my name. Not _Basilton_ or _Basil_ or even _Tyrannus_. Baz. My nickname.

Snow came for me. Somehow he found me, and he broke me free from my chains, and he washed my hair. (Tenderly. The way you would touch someone you cared about.)

And he’s up there, waiting for me, expecting me to fight.

Because we always fight.

I reach a hand forward. My fingers close on dirt. I heave myself forward a bit, reach again. A bit more.

This time my hand closes on his ankle.

His skin is warm under my hand. (Bare skin. Because I’m wearing his stockings). The hair scratches at my palm. I feel him recoil a bit as the manacle around my wrist scrapes at his skin, but he doesn’t pull away.

“Come here,” he says.

And because I’m exhausted and weak and don’t want to die here (even though I _should_ ) I only pause for a moment.

Then I’m surging forward, climbing him hand over hand like a rope. Leaving the dark behind.

I end up with my head under his chin, my face pressed into his neck. My shoulders are heaving. I didn’t realize how afraid I was until I was nestled into the warmth of Simon Snow, hearing the thunder of his heart under my ear.

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” he whispers to me. His breath brushes my ear, and I shiver. He shifts a bit so he can bring his hands up—they’re trapped between us—and slides both of them into my hair. It’s still damp from the washing, and probably recoated in dust after all this crawling. “It’s a squeeze, but it’ll be over soon.”

It’s so kind of him. (Why must he be so kind?) His hands are cupping the curve at the base of my skull, my hair parting around his fingers like water.

I know he’s only doing his best to comfort me. (Hero.) But I can feel his chest rising and falling under my cheek—his breath unexpectedly quick—and his bare chest is pressed against mine, and I can feel him down the entire length of my body, and there’s no space between us—no space to move, no space to _think_.

I’m shaking, and I’ve lost track of whether it’s from thirst or claustrophobia or desire. His warmth pushes out the dark, pushes out everything else.

Simon slides his hands down to my back. I can feel the trace of his touch like fire along my skin, and if this is what it feels like to go up in flames, Crowley, let me burn.

He’s rubbing my back, and I’m finally warm (so warm) everywhere he touches. He’s whispering, and there are hardly enough words left in me to understand: “Shhh. I’ve got you. I’m here, I’m not going anywhere.”

And it’s so exactly what I want to hear and so exactly _not_.

I lift my head and push myself up until our heads are level. “Simon—” I say. I have no idea what I was planning to say next. His smell is everywhere, green things and smoky fire. I’m burning, we’re burning, we must be burning.

And he’ll probably kill me for it, but I’m already dead anyway, and I always knew he would kill me someday, so what’s a little more death?

I tip my head forward and kiss him.

His mouth opens under mine, and he’s kissing me back like he was just waiting for me to go first. _Crowley_. His mouth is warm and ready; the heat of him radiates all the way down my throat, where his cross should be. I can’t think. I wish I could see his face, but I’m afraid of what I would see, so maybe it’s better this way.

His hands settle on my hips, pull me against him. I gasp a little into his mouth. The Sword of Mages is still here somewhere (I should be more aware of it, I usually am) but if he kills me for this after all, I’ll go gladly, if I can die kissing Simon Snow.

His hands are cupping my face, pushing up into my hair, touching my back, my chest, pressing his fingers into the hollow at the base of my throat, slipping his hands up to cradle the line of my jaw with his thumbs. I want to touch him too, but there’s no space to bring my hands up, and I’m afraid of what will happen if I push him away. Will he remember the person he’s kissing is his mortal enemy? (Not to mention a boy.)

As if he can hear what I’m thinking he reaches down, grasps the trailing end of the chains from my wrists, and drags my hands up. They’re freezing, I realize, especially now that Snow has warmed the rest of me.

He drags his mouth away from mine. This is it, I think. The moment he comes to his senses. I squeeze my eyes shut. (Even though it hardly matters, here in the dark.) Waiting for it.

He presses my freezing hands together between both of his. I feel his breath ghost over our twined hands. He’s blowing on them to warm them, I think. The shiver of his breath raises the tiny hairs on the backs of my hands, warming my skin. It feels so good that a tiny sound escapes me.

And this is so stupid—because why should _this_ be the thing that undoes me, after the years of enmity and weeks of imprisonment and the rescuing and now the _kissing_? But there it is. The _kindness_ of it.

He raises one hand to my cheek, turns my face towards his. Reaches for my mouth with his. His lips are so soft, and his tongue is inside my mouth, lighting me up from the inside. I want to sink into his mouth like the ocean and never come out. I pull back. It’s not enough, I think. But when he makes to pull away—to give me space—I hold onto his shoulders.

Nothing has changed, I think. Soon enough we’ll be back in the world. This little light will be lost.

And it is this, as much as anything, that makes me slide my hands down his flanks and into his trousers. He makes a noise—of surprise, I think—but doesn’t pull away. He’s hard, and the feel of him sends a jolt of lightning through my whole body. I was so sure he was kissing me out of—what? Pity? Heroism?

Or maybe this is just the next move in our personal war; I push him until he _goes off_. Gets off. What is sex but another kind of battle? At the thought I go still, because I don’t want to fight any more. What the fuck are we doing? He’s not even gay. (No matter what his body thinks.)

But Simon thrusts his face forward into mine. Kisses me fiercely. Wraps one arm around my neck, pulling me into him, while the other pushes my right hand to the button of his school trousers.

Has he done this before? I wonder, as I clumsily unbutton his trousers and his hand comes back up to bury itself in my hair and he tilts his head to get a better angle on my mouth. His tongue slides against mine and the feeling runs all the way down into my belly like a fuse setting me alight. I close my hand around him, tentatively, and he makes an involuntary noise.

No, this— _this_ is what it is to burn.

I don’t know what I’m doing (at _all_ ), the Internet and long summer holidays of “research” notwithstanding, but Simon doesn’t seem to care. When I move my hand, he gasps and throws his head back, exposing an endless expanse of throat. I can feel the blood moving through his jugular and carotid, and for a moment I’m desperate to bite him.

Instead I press my lips to the place just under his jaw. He shivers, and I feel it down my whole body. His skin is so soft, under my lips and under my hand: delicate as paper, the life beneath closer to the surface. I kiss my way up his jawline, and he lowers his head, searching for my lips in the dark. I feel his curls tumble against my forehead.

I’m crying again. My tears are always too close to the surface, since I’ve been down here, and I can’t compose myself, not with Simon Snow this close to me. I’m glad he can’t see me. But he must feel the wetness on his face, because he turns his head, kissing the tracks of my tears. I feel his tongue against my skin, tasting the salt.

There are words in me after all. There must be, because they’re running out of me along with the tears.

“You found me. I thought that was it, that I'd be there forever and I'd never get to see—”

“Of course I found you, I'll always find you. I was going spare without you, didn't know where you were or what you were doing—”

I drag my hands back up so that I can cup his jaw in both hands. My own tears gather there, moistening my fingers. The skin of his face is rougher, exposed to sun and wind. He snatches his head away, kissing down my neck and into the V of my filthy shirt. He slides one of his legs between mine, pushing me back into the dirt, pressing his hips into mine. I feel his hardness against my own and try to hold back a groan.

“Never going to lose track of you again,” he says against my skin.

When I imagined my first time (with Simon, always Simon) there were roses, and soft red light, and a bed. Confessions of love. Endless time for touching. Not this fumbling in the quiet dark, with chains still around my wrists.

But it’s easier in the dark, somehow. I don’t have to try to control my expression. We could almost be strangers, as if I don’t already know every line of him from tracing it with my eyes. Here in the dark, this could almost be one of my endless captive dreams. I don’t have to pretend it’s real.

“Simon—” I say.

“Yeah, come on, yeah,” he says, his breath ragged against my collarbone.

“ **Let there be light!** ” Snow says, and I flinch away—partially from the light, partially from Snow attempting magic this close to me.

I felt my magic come rushing back as we climbed out of the tunnel mouth into the catacombs. Snow’s must have come back as well. Now he’s squinting at me in the dim light, still gripping my hand in the hand that isn’t holding his wand. His hair is flat on one side, curls cascading in all directions in the other. He’s filthy and disheveled and so beautiful it hurts my eyes.

Something else has come back along with our magic: a distance. As if we’re waking up. Remembering who we are. Already our time together in the tunnel might be something I dreamed.

He raises his wand. “ **Get well soon** ,” he murmurs. I push his hand away, mostly from habit.

“Enough, Snow. I just need a shower. And some proper rest. You don't need to keep treating me like some damsel in distress. I don't need a hero.”

He goes still for a moment, then nods silently. He points his wand at my manacles instead. Snow is nothing if not persistent.

“ **Free as a bird!** ” he declares. Nothing. “ **Free at last!** ”

It’s painful to listen to. I snatch his wand from his hand and point it at my own wrist. “ **Get out of jail free!** ”

I fully expect the manacles to unclasp themselves and fall from my wrists. It _should_ work, even with someone else’s wand. But nothing happens.

“Shall we try _give me freedom or give me death?_ ” he says, only a bit pointedly. I get the message and reluctantly hand his wand back. I felt safer, more myself, with a wand in my hand.

A rat scurries by. I can sense others, watching from the shadows. My fangs slide down, against my will. The cup of blood was what seems like hours ago, and I’m cold again, and rats are warm and living.

“D’you—?” Snow says, gesturing inarticulately towards the rat. I shake my head, closing my lips firmly over my fangs. I'm starving, but I’ll be damned before I hunt in front of Simon Snow.

Instead I lead him out of the catacombs and back towards Mummer’s House.

Back in the turret I indulge myself in one look around our room (my bed, perfectly made up; Snow’s bed, looking like a numpty nest; the window, open) before disappearing into the bathroom and shutting Snow on the other side of a door.

I stand under the hot shower ( _bliss_ ), bracing both hands against the wall and letting the water wash away the weeks underground. The feeling of Simon Snow on my skin.

I hiss as the hot water hits the raw skin under the manacles. I want these things _off_ me.

But the pain is good. It reminds me where we stand.

There in the dark, Simon kissed me like I was something precious.

He dragged up the hem of my shirt until it was rucked up under my armpits (there wasn’t room to take it off all the way). For a moment I could feel the cold air of the tunnel on my stomach and chest.

Then his hands were on me: tracing the line of my ribcage, running up my chest to my collarbones. Fitting themselves into the arch of my hipbones, drifting back to clasp around the swell of my arse, pulling me hard into him until I moaned and arched my back. He clenched a fist in my hair, wrenching my head forward, and we kissed as if we might fall into each other and drown.

Simon Snow kisses like he fights: confident, aggressive. No pausing to think. Just taking what he wants.

He sucked my earlobe into his mouth, touched the shell of my ears with light fingers. We kissed for what might have been hours. Centuries. He kissed me until I forgot where we were, forgot everything but his mouth moving on mine.

He touched me until I was warm and pliable and languorous under his hands. Until my breath came heavy and I could no longer tell what I was saying.

And when I thought I couldn’t stand it any more I found the gap between skin and waistband, the zipper already half undone. His hip bones were fragile and fluting under my hands, too little flesh over them; I wondered again what had happened in the weeks since I disappeared. I slipped my hands under his pants, following the curve of his hips, pushing his trousers down with my knuckles. And Simon gasped and grabbed at my shoulder with his teeth, like he was the vampire, and his sounds made me feel lit like a firework from the inside. And then his hands were following mine, pulling at my tennis shorts, sliding them over my hips.

When Simon Snow came, he arched his back and clenched his teeth and laughed a little. The sound was so delighted and _happy_ that it made my chest ache. “Baz,” he said, and my name dragged between his lips was the sweetest sound I’d heard in a lifetime of magic words.

Afterwards we lay in each other’s arms on the floor of the tunnel, limbs tangled loosely together, lips a breath apart. And he stroked his thumb down my cheekbone, feather light, murmuring words I can no longer remember.

I don’t know what I was thinking.

Even closeted magicians who spend most of the year without access to the Internet have heard about straight boys who’re happy to fool around in the dark as long as you don’t mention it during the day.

Snow may be thick, but even he can’t help but suspect that I’m queer after we—after I—

I shake my head, spraying water against the shower walls.

And now he has proof that I’m a vampire.

Very well. Snow rescued me; I did something for him in return. In the dark, I imagine one body is much like another (I wouldn’t know). Let him pretend I was Wellbelove, and we’ll never speak of it again.

I stay in the shower for as long as I can, until the water starts to run cold and even my vampire skin starts to wrinkle.

Snow is gone when I come out, thank snakes. I pace around the room, open and close all of my drawers (empty; all of my things are still at home), close the window because the cool breeze reminds me too much of the tunnels. I nick a pair of his school pyjamas and take them into the bathroom to change, trying not to think about how much they smell like him.

He’s still not back when I come out. I rummage through the class notes on his messy desk just for something to do with my hands, but none of the words make any sense (and not just because he has the handwriting of a tortured cat).

I’m starting to wonder whether Snow is gone for the night, and whether that thought makes me feel more relieved or sad. I need to sleep. I _really_ need to sleep.

Just then Snow comes through the door carrying a truly monstrous platter of sandwiches and a half gallon carton. I smell the blood before I see it moving sluggishly against the side of the container. My eyes jerk up to his, and for a second we can’t help looking at each other. He’s so lovely, and I can still see the marks my mouth made on his neck, and when I look at him I can’t help knowing all the things I now know about his body.

He pulls his eyes away, jerks his chin in a short nod, puts down the platter on my desk, and vanishes into the bathroom. I clench my fingers around the back of his chair. So this is how it’s going to be. Well. I can’t say I’m surprised.

I gulp the blood and scarf the sandwiches in case Snow finishes his shower more quickly than I expect. After the sandwiches I feel better. More human.

I perch on the edge of my bed with Snow’s wand positioned over one of the shackles and run through every freedom-from-captivity spell in my not-insubstantial repertoire. None of them work, and I can’t tell whether it’s because my magic is weak and flickering after so many weeks trapped underground in a dead zone or because I’m using Snow’s wand or because the manacles are ensorcelled or something else entirely.

I’m fidgeting with the wand when Snow emerges from the bathroom, bringing a storm front of institutional-smelling steam with him. He’s fully dressed in fresh pyjamas—he must have taken them with him into the bathroom, thank snakes.

“Where’s yours?” he asks, meaning the wand.

I sneer. Oh, are we talking now?

But I’m too tired to fight. I feel empty, hollowed out from the inside. “I don’t know. I might have lost it when I was grabbed.”

"Okay, we'll go looking for it tomorrow,” he says. And I’m honestly not sure what he’s saying. Does he think we’re _mates_ now?

I had some time to think while he was in the shower. I need to get these manacles off me—I can’t go to class in chains, and I can’t have anyone asking what happened to me. Going to the Mage is out of the question for obvious reasons, and I don’t trust any of the teachers. Dev and Niall aren’t powerful enough to help, not if my own spells aren’t working. Penelope Bunce _is_ , but I’ll be damned before I let Snow’s sidekick see me in chains.

My best bet is probably my father or Fiona. I need to call them and tell them I’m safe anyway (and have them bring my things to school). But I’m too tired tonight to deal with my father’s anger and Daphne’s fussing and Fiona swearing revenge upon the Mage. And I don’t think I can stand to spend one more night chained.

Very well, the choice of last resort then.

“Do you think you can manage?” I ask Snow, handing back his wand. “ _The truth will set you free._ ”

I wish there was another way—a way that didn’t involve trusting Simon Snow with an eighth-year spell this close to me. Particularly _this_ spell.

Another person has to cast it on you, and the recipient has to pay for it with a personal truth. A _meaningful_ truth. Wars have started over this spell. Rumor has it that the Beatles broke up when one of his bandmates cast it on John Lennon. I think I might almost prefer being back in the cell to having Simon Snow cast truth-telling spells on me.

But this is the most powerful freedom spell I’ve ever heard of, and Snow is the Greatest Mage. So.

He nods, pointing his wand at me. I try not to flinch.

“ **The truth will set you free!** ” he says, carefully, with elocution that would have earned praise from Miss Possibelf, had she been here to see this farce of a situation. (Which, Crowley, I am glad she is not).

I feel the air fill with his magic, shimmering like the air above hot pavement on a summer day. The tendrils reach over and grab hold of me, wrapping me in his smoky smell. I can feel the spell work on me, the magic crawling down my throat and hooking in my belly. Right where Snow touched me only a few hours ago.

Very well. Let’s get this over with.

“I’m grateful for your help,” I grit out, trying for the smallest possible truth. The spell doesn’t react; I imagine it shaking its head ruefully at the poverty of that confession. The manacles, _obviously_ , stay where they are.

“Even I could have told you that wouldn't be enough,” Snow says. “Try again.”

“I—” I swallow. I hate this so much. “I thought of you while I was missing. Often.”

Snow looks up at me at this, but I drop my eyes. The spell requires a stronger truth, clearly, and I’m not sure I can look at him while I’m doing this.

“I’m desperately attracted to you,” I force out. This is true, but perhaps it’s less of a revelation than it might have been a few months ago, before we wrung moans from each other in a dark tunnel.

I sneak a look at Snow. The room is lit only by the dim lamp on his desk, but moonlight creeps in through the window behind him and washes his bronze hair silver. His eyes are wide as he looks at me, midnight blue in the low light.

“I—” I start, and stop again. “I—”

This is ridiculous. Ridiculous and _unnecessary_. I can tolerate one more night before I call Father and Fiona tomorrow. I’ll ask Snow to undo his spell. (The counterspell, _You can’t handle the truth_ , is much simpler.)

I drop my head in my hands, just so I don’t have to look at him anymore. The shackles are cold against my cheeks, but that’s all right. It’s all right.

I know what I need to say, the truth the spell demands. Maybe I always knew. Maybe I asked for this spell _because_ I knew it.

I feel a soft touch on my knee and crack one eye open. Snow is crouched in front of me. Moonlight brightens his eyes and gathers in his hair.

“Baz,” he says, and I can’t help myself, a little shiver goes through me. He reaches out and takes my hands, pulling them away from my face. “Baz. It’s fine, whatever it is—”

I shake my head. _Obviously_ it is _not_ fine.

Simon climbs onto the bed with me. I should snap at him about it—he is definitely _not_ allowed on my bed—but I just don’t have the strength.

He brushes my damp hair away from my face. His hands are gentle. (So gentle.) He’s looking searchingly into my eyes, and I can hardly stand it. I’m trying so hard to lie to him, and when he looks at me like that the truth batters itself against the back of my teeth, trying to force itself out.

“I thought about you while you were missing too,” he says. He glances away, a rueful smile on his face. “And I’m also attracted to you.”

_In the dark_ , I think. But he’s sliding his hand into my hair, taking me by the nape of my neck, and I close my eyes because I want him to kiss me again.

It’s nothing like the tunnels, all desperate and dark and hungry. Now moonlight etches his cheekbones in silver, and his lips are soft and slow. I feel his eyelashes fluttering against my cheeks. Our noses bump, and I feel him smiling into my lips. He’s let go, so that I could pull away if I want, but I don’t.

I’m glad he rescued me, because otherwise I would never have known how gentle Simon Snow can be.

He pulls away for a moment, looking into my eyes. He’s asking a question, and the answer is _yes_. _Always yes, Simon Snow._

The kiss deepens, intensifies. He nudges me backwards, his hands on my shoulders, and I sink back into the bed. He follows me down, settling his warm weight onto me. His hips are pressing mine into the mattress, and suddenly I’m breathing hard.

Crowley, I can’t believe this is happening. How many times have I lain in this bed dreaming of this?

And _he_ just kissed _me_.

I rise up to meet him, wrapping my arms around his hips to pull him even closer. I push my tongue into his mouth, and he growls, deep in his throat. I can feel it vibrate all the way down to my chest. It’s _indescribably_ hot.

The truth can wait, I think, half frantic, thrusting my hands down the back of his pajama bottoms.

But Simon reaches around behind himself to extract my hands from his pants. He laces his fingers through each of my hands, careful to avoid the raw areas on my wrists, and presses my hands into the mattress behind my head.

It should be unbearable, when I’m not even one night away from captivity, still wearing chains. But his hands are gentle on mine, holding me with the lightest pressure. He pauses above me, his eyes looking steadily into mine: All right?

I trust him, I realize. I keep expecting him to hurt me and he keeps rescuing me instead. So I kiss him harder, and he loops the trailing end of chain around the bedpost and buries his face in my neck.

“Snow,” I growl, and he kisses down the side of my neck and into the hollow of my collarbone.

“You said you didn’t need a hero,” he says, looking up at me. There’s laughter in his eyes, and maybe something more. “Prove it. Set yourself free.”

He’s expecting me to say I’m a vampire. He thinks he already knows my secret, and the trick is just getting me to say it out loud.

“It’s not that simple,” I say. He’s tracing down the line of my sternum with the tip of his tongue, and it makes me grind my hips into him a little. We’re both hard again, and I think I might actually die if I can’t kiss him again in the next three seconds.

"Probably not," he says. “But it's also not as bad as you think it'll be.” He lets go of the chain and moves his hands down to clasp mine again. I feel exposed like this, spread out and open below him, quite literally showing my belly. But it’s also profoundly sexy.

“Here, I'll start,” he says. He slides up my body until we’re face to face again. He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes. I see his Adam’s apple move as he swallows.

“Baz,” he says. “I’m obsessed with you.”

“Snow—” I say.

“Simon,” he corrects.

“Simon,” I say. “I’ve known that for _years_.” I can feel a smile beginning to stretch my mouth.

“Okay,” he says, taking another breath. “Well. I fancy you.”

My eyes widen, hearing it out loud. But I can’t help but ask: “What about Wellbelove?”

“Agatha?” he says. He squints a bit, looking confused. The effect is more intense from up close. “Baz, we broke up. Weeks ago.” He ducks his head, suddenly looking shy. “I…think she noticed I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

He’s looking down into my eyes, and they’re so bright and blue and _happy_ that I have to look away. I want to kiss him again, pull him down onto me, make him forget he ever cast a truth spell. Make him forget his own damned name.

But the spell is still sitting there like a smoky hook in my gut, and Simon’s eyes are expectant on mine, and I don’t want to be imprisoned anymore. Even if I built the cage myself.

I close my eyes and breathe deep.

“I love you,” I say, my eyes still squeezed shut. “Simon, I’m in love with you.”

I feel the manacles heat up and melt away. But Simon is silent above me, and I’m afraid to open my eyes.

He said he was attracted to me. He _fancies_ me. He never said anything about love.

Simon rolls off of me, onto his side. Well, that’s that. I should be glad to find out now, before I spend too much more time pining. (It’s pathetic, really.)

I still have my eyes shut, and I hope that Simon will just get up and go back to his own bed so I can pretend to sleep.

Then I feel Simon take my battered wrists gently in his hands. His thumbs brush the delicate skin right over my pulse. I feel his lips touch the raw places on my wrist where the manacles were, light as moth wings. Maybe they’ll start to heal, now that they’re free.

“Teach me,” he says. His voice is barely above a whisper. Vulnerable. “I don’t—I don’t know how.” And suddenly I think of all those years in care homes, all those years not ever knowing he had magic inside him. All those years without anyone to show him what love looked like.

I open my eyes and Simon Snow is looking into them, his expression sad and fierce and hopeful all at once.

“But I could learn,” he says, the tiniest thread of hope in his voice.

I know he’ll fight. We always fight.

“Tomorrow,” I say. “We’ll start tomorrow.”

I realize I’m grinning, a real grin that takes up my entire face. Simon’s face is brighter than the moon. I tug at him, pulling him back onto me, and he lowers his face to mine. A thread of desire sparks in my belly, right where the spell hook used to be.

I’m still exhausted and battered and only half a step away from death. We still don’t know who kidnapped me or how to stop the Humdrum or the wars.

But the boy I’ve loved hopelessly for years rescued me from the dark, and then rescued me from myself, and now he’s in my bed, kissing me as if he doesn’t ever plan to stop.

Sometimes that’s all you have: a tiny light in the dark. The hope to fan it into a flame.


End file.
